


Mythical Beasts in a Digital Age

by Glinda



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dragons, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Silly, pizza dog - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-16
Updated: 2014-09-16
Packaged: 2018-02-17 16:01:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2315294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone in Clint's building discovered a dragon's egg, and decided to livetweet the process of hatching the thing. Phil's team trace the hashtag back to its source and get more than they bargined for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mythical Beasts in a Digital Age

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sealcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sealcat/gifts).



> I was utterly blocked on this story, couldn't figure out how they'd run into each other but then I saw a post on [tumblr](http://officialhamlet.tumblr.com/post/92939723998/i-want-realistic-modern-fantasy-like-someone)
> 
> " i want realistic modern fantasy like
> 
> someone finding a dragon egg and livetweeting the process of trying to hatch it (with no prior knowledge on how a dragon egg should be hatched)"
> 
> that made my brain go 'Ah ha! What if one of the kids in Clint's apartment block finds the egg and Skye stumbles on the twitterfeed so Coulson's team come to investigate it'. Also I appear to have accidentally written an Agents of SHIELD/Hawkeye cross-over despite never having seen an episode of AOS and only having read the first few issues of Hawkeye. I'd apologise but it was really fun to write!

It starts when some teenager in New York finds a dragon egg behind a dumpster and decides to not only take it home with them but to attempt to hatch said egg. They also decide to live-tweet the process, which is a bad thing on one level – it’s going to be a nightmare for SHIELD to cover up – and a really good thing because otherwise they might not have known about it in time to actually do any good. At least that’s what Skye tells herself as she pages through the #giantmagicegg hash tag on twitter. When she first stumbles across the tag she thinks its some sort of prank or art project, the photos are mostly on instagram and well it would take more than a few #nofilter tags to convince her those colours are real. By the time she realises it’s genuine; the egg has its own twitter feed – with several thousand followers, its own tumblr and has hatched. The latest post is a picture of a tiny dragon with just the caption ‘What the hell do I feed it?!???!!!!’

Three days later the feeds go dark. People are still chatting about it, shares and reblogs remain steady but there’s no new updates or photos for several days. The kid had geo-location switched off so they’ve had to narrow their search area down by using data from her friends accounts. They waste about 6 hours, because apparently the family had moved from Philadelphia a couple of years previously and a clutch of people all at one high school there turn out to be former rather than current classmates. Skye is on tenterhooks trying not to think what might have befallen a 15-year-old girl in a confined space with a dragon, until a brief and slightly terse update appears. 

‘Bea set fire to something else yesterday. Everything smells of smoke and all my allowance is gone – dragon food – so of course, parents think I’ve taken up smoking. Grounded. No phone. No internet privileges. So unfair.’ 

She used a public computer at a library that must reasonably be on her way home from school for her to have snuck in when she was grounded, which narrows them down from New York state to Brooklyn and after some of Skye’s patent jiggery pokery the Bedford branch of the Brooklyn Public Library which means in all likelihood the neighbourhood of Bedford-Stuyvesant. They’re cross-referencing instagram pics of buildings and street art with Street view images and twitter trash talk among her friends, when Skye thinks she hears Coulson mutter “I knew a guy in Bed-Stuy…” but when she looks up he looks utterly engrossed in his work, no trace of the regret she’d sworn had coloured his voice a moment before. She knows she should say something to the others, but Coulson recruited her and her first loyalty will always be to him, so she holds her peace and pretends she didn’t hear. 

~

It starts for Clint when his building gets evacuated for the third time that week, for a fire alarm from the same apartment. The D’Souzas are very apologetic, they suspect their teenage daughter of smoking in her room – various cardigans and long sleeve tops have developed mysterious singe marks from ‘Chemistry accidents’ at school – but they haven’t been able to catch her and she denies it. Clint himself rather suspects dodgy wiring in the smoke detectors. He’s not getting involved in that particular parenting minefield, but the detector is in the hall, even if the kid isn’t following the time-honoured tradition of smoking out the window, a sneaky puff in her room shouldn’t be enough to set it off. 

So, when the fire alarm goes yet again and he knows that the D’Souzas won’t be home from work yet, instead of evacuating like everyone else, he runs down the stairs to their apartment, master key in hand to see if he can fix the issue. He’s initially surprised to find the door unlocked and then utterly horrified to find the place actually full of smoke. Nothing appears to actually on fire, at least not currently, she can hear a voice he recognises as the D’Souzas’ daughter Mercedes, scolding someone called Bea in the kitchen and all the windows are open in a futile attempt to disperse the smoke. He leaves the door open to help with the dispersal and raps on the kitchen doorframe. Something, about the size of a dog but scaly and iridescent, startles and bolts out of the kitchen when it sees him.

“Please tell me you shut the door behind you, Mr Hawkeye?” Mercedes asks, face screwed up like she already knows the answer. 

Clint shakes his head before cutting straight to the chase, whatever just nearly knocked the feet out from under him, definitely wasn’t a dog.

“Was that a dragon?” He asks, because he’s fought aliens and met Norse gods, he’s not actually surprised that he’s going to add mythical beasts to the list. 

She nods tensely. “I found an egg and then it hatched and she was so cute and lovely. I couldn’t exactly take her down the animal shelter, what if they put her down when they couldn’t find her a home? But she kept getting bigger and she keeps setting things on fire by accident and now I couldn’t take her there if I tried. I love her and I want to protect her, but I’m a bit scared of her now and I don’t know what to do. I’m in so much trouble aren’t I?” 

Clint takes a moment to process her answer, delivered as it was at high speed. There’s no point in lying to the kid, or scaring her unnecessarily. “So much trouble, I can’t believe I’m going to have to add a ‘no keeping mythical creatures as pets’ clause into the rent agreements here. Stay here, I’m going try and catch it before it escapes the building, then we’ll worry about what to do with it.”

“You won’t kill her, will you?” Mercedes asks in a small voice. He looks back at her and she suddenly looks very young and very small, all grimy from the smoke and deflated now that the adrenaline has worn off. It’s not as though she purposefully released a dragon on the city of New York, and the dragon certainly didn’t ask to be hatched here. Neither of them deserves cruelty, but he will do what he has to, to protect the civilians around them. 

“I’ll try not to,” he promises, it’s the best he can do.

 

The dragon, it turns out, hasn’t gone far. He finds it sitting in the corridor three floors up, snout to snout with Lucky. Oddly enough, the dragon’s recent growth spurt has left it almost the same height as its new canine friend. With the kind of reckless disregard for his own safety that gave the dog so much in common with his owner, Lucky is sniffing the dragon enthusiastically while his tail thumps happily on the ground. Small tendrils of smoke drift out of the dragon’s nose and it makes an odd, soft, trilling sound as it sits there. It could burn his dog to a crisp at a moments notice – by accident even – Clint realises with a stab of cold fear, but instead it appears to be doing the dragon equivalent of purring contently. Now that he’s found the dragon, Clint’s left with a dilemma. It’s not actually a threat at the moment, a fire hazard certainly and not domesticated in the slightest, but its not evil or even vicious and killing it in cold blood for being in the wrong place at the wrong time seems wrong somehow. He carefully returns his ordinary arrow to the quiver and prepares to fire a tranquiliser arrow, only to hesitate. Vague memories of someone in the circus telling him years ago that snakes died under anaesthetic – they just stopped breathing – and he racks his brain to try and remember if that applies to lizards too. Handily someone proceeds to take the decision out of his hands. 

“Agent Barton, stand down,” says a familiar, if unlikely voice, “I think we’re going to need an Asgardian for this one. “

Clint swivels away from the dragon, but doesn’t lower his bow for a moment. The creature that looks and sounds like Phil Coulson walks along the corridor towards him, body language carefully unthreatening. Lucky whines unhappily from somewhere behind him, but Clint doesn’t glance away for as much as a moment. Something is wearing his ex-boyfriend’s skin like a suit and that means that the dragon has now been officially downgraded from most dangerous thing in the building. 

~

The thing was, they hadn’t actually been together that long. Long enough to know that they were compatible in lots of ways, and long enough to know that it wasn’t working. It wasn’t as though they were compromised at work, but they both knew that there were certain courses of action they couldn’t take any more. They’d both joined SHIELD for a reason, they believed in what they did and its importance. It shouldn’t have made much difference; they already knew they would go to ridiculous extremes to rescue each other, but there were nuances that they hadn’t expected. Shooting a target through your colleague’s arm when they’re being used as a human shield was an act of trust between friends, but felt like an act of betrayal between lovers. The lies and half-truths their work necessitated they tell each other were accepted unquestioningly before and after, but during their relationship had made them distrustful and paranoid. As friends and teammates they were superb, as lovers they became people they didn’t actually like. It was for the best. As Clint’s relationships went it had actually ended well – they were friends before and they were friends after. There were occasional lapses after fraught missions, in safe houses, desperate kisses and really good sex, and the quiet companionship afterwards listening to each other breath or watching each other cook. Mostly though, they moved on, personally and professionally – Phil had his cellist and the search for Captain America, and Clint increasing ran missions alone or with Natasha without a handler on site. The world was getting bigger and stranger, but Phil would still request Clint whenever he needed a sniper and there was no-one that Clint would rather have in his ear on a mission. Sometimes when Phil was doing first aid on him, hands quick and careful on his skin, Clint had to bite his tongue to stop himself asking if this was better, if this hurt less. Sitting on a bunk in the Hellicarrier, Loki freshly banished and Natasha’s shoulder firm against his own as she told him Phil was dead, he felt like a hole had opened up inside him. He couldn’t imagine how it could possibly have hurt more. 

~

The thing wearing Coulson’s face turns out to not be anything creepy or dangerous after all. Well, no creepier than the man himself having been raised from the dead by alien tech, and frankly Coulson was a fairly dangerous operative in his own right before he died. By the time Clint gets some sort of explanation of Coulson’s continued existence and everyone relaxes enough to lower their weapons, the novelty of Lucky has worn off for the dragon, and its started to make distressed, cornered noises that seem likely to result in fiery death for them all. Priorities are re-arranged swiftly. They corral the dragon into a containment unit on Coulson’s team’s transport. They only need to get the dragon out of the city to somewhere open. It turns out that Sif is on earth and has identified the realm where ‘Bea’ originates from, so she can be returned to her own kind. Mercedes is devastated, but thankfully mature enough to recognise that her pet needs things she couldn’t give and that this is the best and safest option for both of them. 

Fitz and Simmons are monitoring the dragon making sure it doesn’t do anything dangerous – while Agent Ward watches over them for much the same reason – and Agent May and Skye are debriefing young Mercedes and her family about her erstwhile pet. And Coulson, well apparently what he needs to be doing involves sitting on the floor of Clint’s apartment bonding with his dog. It’s a little bit surreal and Clint suspects he might find it hilarious, if he weren’t puttering round his kitchen making coffee to disguise the way he was struggling to breath round what felt like a huge hole in his chest that had opened back up again, now that the adrenaline had worn off. Eventually he makes himself walk across to where Coulson and Lucky are sitting on the floor, Lucky’s crooked tail thumping happily on the floor as Coulson pets him gently. Coulson has removed his tie and when he looks up at Clint it is clear from his expression that a lot more of his defences are down. He looks lost and tired and terribly sad, and any reservations Clint had had about joining him on the floor evaporate. He drops down cross-legged beside Coulson and joins in with petting his dog. Coulson is quiet for a long time afterwards before saying quietly “Sorry” and leaning forward until his forehead is leaning against the side of Clint’s head. Clint carefully turns him round, manoeuvring him so that he can get an arm round Phil properly and stroke his hair in the same rhythm that he’s petting Lucky with. The rhythm seems to help because before he knows it Phil’s pretty much plastered to Clint’s side and talking quietly and desperately in long run on sentences about dying and being revived and nightmares and loneliness. When Phil eventually runs out of words, Clint fills him in on acquiring a dog - which has got bored and wandered off at some point - and becoming a landlord, and all the day to day nonsense of his life when he’s not being a superhero. The kind of stuff he’s been storing up in his head ‘to tell Phil’ and then beating himself up about forgetting that his friend is dead. They don’t talk about Loki. They’re clinging to each other like they’re adrift in an ocean rather than sitting on the floor of Clint’s apartment but they don’t touch on the fact that the last time they saw each other was on CCTV and an alien possessed one of them and the other was bleeding out on the floor. They should probably talk about the fact that Phil’s team is waiting for him and will likely come looking any time now, or about how Clint is supposed to hide this new knowledge from Natasha when she’ll be able to take one look at his face and know. Instead Clint presses a kiss to Phil’s forehead and Phil pulls Clint’s face down for a proper kiss, and before Clint knows where he is he’s pressing Phil down onto the floor, shirt pulled open and trousers pulled down. On the sporadic occasions they’ve had sex since they broke up, its been fast and desperate, but given that it usually started while they were checking each other out for injuries, its almost always naked. This is different, for all that they’re both half-dressed and conscious that they’re on a deadline, the sex is slower and tenderer than floor sex has any right to be. They don’t make each other any promises or declarations, but if feels like something important has changed, and for a while, they don’t talk about anything at all.

Afterwards, Clint accompanies them to see off the dragon. It gambols happily round Sif’s feet like an overgrown puppy and when the sky opens at Sif’s command it leaps into the air and for the first time Clint really appreciates how magnificent and terrifying it will be when it grows up. Lucky whines a lot when they leave Phil behind so Clint casually suggests that Phil should feel free to pop round and hang out with Lucky if he’s in the neighbourhood. Phil agrees that they wouldn’t want the dog to pine and it’s only the presence of an actual teenager that prevents them standing around grinning stupidly at each other and makes them actually walk away. Then Clint escorts Mercedes home to be thoroughly grounded and to reassure her parents that they won’t be billed for any damage caused to the building by the dragon. 

The last post on the #giantmagicegg hashtag is a photo of Bea the dragon nose to nose with Lucky the dog with the caption. ‘Bea made a new friend. He belongs to an Avenger, who called some friends and got her a flight home. Not just a dragon – a space dragon! Miss you loads baby girl! Xxxx’


End file.
